I realize that the "Four More Years" thread has been soaking up most of the comments on gun control, but I thought it was time to seperate it out.

One of the proposals was based on the caliber of the weapon. Someone suggested banning .50 caliber weapons as they are to big to be hunting weapons. Almost all .50 cal weapons are single shot. Other than the WWII machine gun, which is very hard to find and harder to get, the Barrett .50 is a semi-auto weapon. All other .50 cal weapons that I personally know of are over one hundred years old. The Sharps .50 is the only one of those hundred plus year old designs that is still being manufactured. Remington and Winchester also had .50 cal single shot designs.

My younger brother still uses his Sharps .50 to hunt Bighorn Sheep and Mountain Goats. He uses a Remington .45/70 rolling block to hunt elk and bear. He has several other black powder rifles, including one in the Buffalo Bill Cody Museum in Cody, Wyoming. That one he purchased at a gun show and when he started restoring it, he found the original bill of sale to William Cody stuck between the butt plate and the wooden stock.

Another proposal is a ban on "assault weapons". As this forum has shown, just coming up with a definition that everyone agrees on is going to be difficult, if not immpossible. Since some of those defintitions include shotguns as well as rifles and some catagories of pistols, it is no wonder that some gun owners consider all such proposed legislation as no more than an attempt to take away all guns from every one.

One of the claims I have heard repeatedly is that the 5 cities with the toughest gun laws are the 5 highest gun crime cities in the country. I would like to see standardized reporting on gun crimes to back up one side or the other on this issue. Included in the statistics should be robberies using guns as well as murders (including gang related).

Fifty years ago, a homeowner who shot a burgler caught in the act would not raise an eyebrow. That same homeowner in exactly the same situation today would be sued for wrongful death of the criminal, arrested for murder or assault or, at the very least, condemned as inhuman by the media. Protecting yourself or someone else on the street from rape or robbery is an almost gauranteed prison sentence, said sentence to be the same lenghth or longer than the criminal doing the attacking.

One of the things that I can't get over (or at least see in a different light) is the fact that fourty to fifty years ago the gun control laws were much less restrictive, yet there was less gun violence per capita (at least in my area) than there is today. We did not have gang kids (in the case I am thinking of his age was 14) walking into a convenience store and shooting the clerk in the head and killing him. There was no robbery involved. When caught and convicted, the perpetrator, being a minor, was given four years in juvinal detention, to be released at the age of eighteen. This particular murder was to be his gang initiation. Gun control laws would have done nothing to prevent this particular crime because the gun used was stolen in California, used in a robbery in Nevada and finally used to kill the clerk.

More thought and less histeria is needed on the topic. Propose something that makes sense if you want support.

couple of different things i would like to mention. While i personally dislike guns because of having been a combat medic in the military i realize that they do have uses. Here in my state if you shoot a burglar caught in the act and you can prove you was in fear of your life in some way, you will not be prosecuted and the burglars family cannot sue you either. By the same token if that same kid had committed his crime here there is the good possibility he would be spending life in prison with no possibility of parole.

Now as for hunting there is no way you need the Barrets .50 to go hunting with it. a black powder is fine and indeed there are some .75 black powders floating around. I personally prefer a recurve bow for hunting. Also a .22 rifle or pistol is just as deadly if not more so because of the bullets tendency to bounce around inside of the body.

KNick wrote:I realize that the "Four More Years" thread has been soaking up most of the comments on gun control, but I thought it was time to seperate it out.

One of the proposals was based on the caliber of the weapon. Someone suggested banning .50 caliber weapons as they are to big to be hunting weapons. Almost all .50 cal weapons are single shot. Other than the WWII machine gun, which is very hard to find and harder to get, the Barrett .50 is a semi-auto weapon. All other .50 cal weapons that I personally know of are over one hundred years old. The Sharps .50 is the only one of those hundred plus year old designs that is still being manufactured. Remington and Winchester also had .50 cal single shot designs.

My younger brother still uses his Sharps .50 to hunt Bighorn Sheep and Mountain Goats. He uses a Remington .45/70 rolling block to hunt elk and bear. He has several other black powder rifles, including one in the Buffalo Bill Cody Museum in Cody, Wyoming. That one he purchased at a gun show and when he started restoring it, he found the original bill of sale to William Cody stuck between the butt plate and the wooden stock.

Another proposal is a ban on "assault weapons". As this forum has shown, just coming up with a definition that everyone agrees on is going to be difficult, if not immpossible. Since some of those defintitions include shotguns as well as rifles and some catagories of pistols, it is no wonder that some gun owners consider all such proposed legislation as no more than an attempt to take away all guns from every one.

One of the claims I have heard repeatedly is that the 5 cities with the toughest gun laws are the 5 highest gun crime cities in the country. I would like to see standardized reporting on gun crimes to back up one side or the other on this issue. Included in the statistics should be robberies using guns as well as murders (including gang related).

Fifty years ago, a homeowner who shot a burgler caught in the act would not raise an eyebrow. That same homeowner in exactly the same situation today would be sued for wrongful death of the criminal, arrested for murder or assault or, at the very least, condemned as inhuman by the media. Protecting yourself or someone else on the street from rape or robbery is an almost gauranteed prison sentence, said sentence to be the same lenghth or longer than the criminal doing the attacking.

One of the things that I can't get over (or at least see in a different light) is the fact that fourty to fifty years ago the gun control laws were much less restrictive, yet there was less gun violence per capita (at least in my area) than there is today. We did not have gang kids (in the case I am thinking of his age was 14) walking into a convenience store and shooting the clerk in the head and killing him. There was no robbery involved. When caught and convicted, the perpetrator, being a minor, was given four years in juvinal detention, to be released at the age of eighteen. This particular murder was to be his gang initiation. Gun control laws would have done nothing to prevent this particular crime because the gun used was stolen in California, used in a robbery in Nevada and finally used to kill the clerk.

More thought and less histeria is needed on the topic. Propose something that makes sense if you want support.

Not entirely relevant to the purposeof the thread and i don't want to hijack it, bt you made a comment about self-defense. And the ethics of self-defense is one of the supposed purposes of gun-ownership so i'll go ahead.

So re the self defence thing. Self-defence is frequently misunderstood. Nowhere is going to prosecute you if you shoot somone with a legally-owned and registered firearm in self-defense in the home. They may ask some pointed questions and look for evidence to ensure that it was self-defense first, but they won't prosecute. What you are not normally allowed to do (some stand your ground laws do seem to actually legalise this) is get them to surrender and then walk up to them and shoot them in the head. Or chase them out of your property and then shoot them as they run away. When a fuss about a case of someone shooting someone while defending their own property is made, it generally turns out that it was something like the above - ie not self-defence but vigilante justice.

Also, self-defense tends to be about mental state of the specific person. Ie, the test isn't that 'they were in grave danger' or even 'a reasonable person would think they were in grave danger' but that 'the specific person thought they were in grave danger' - so even if it turns out there was no danger then its still ok so long as they can convincingly say on the stand that they were scared for their life.

There was a recent case in my own country where two men chased burglars out of their house with base-ball bats (ok), chased them down the road and round the block (a bit iffy, but understandble) and then caught up with them and beat their brains out (not ok). One burglar died, the other ended up in a coma with severe brain damage. Quite rightly, in my opinion, the pair were prosecuted. I'm not sure what the outcome was. What are others thoughts on this?

-------------------------------Happiness is not having what you wantNor is happiness wanting what you haveHappiness is believing that tomorrow you shall havewhat you want today

viciokie wrote:Now as for hunting there is no way you need the Barrets .50 to go hunting with it. a black powder is fine and indeed there are some .75 black powders floating around. I personally prefer a recurve bow for hunting. Also a .22 rifle or pistol is just as deadly if not more so because of the bullets tendency to bounce around inside of the body.

You encounter a bear in the woods. Not a cute little 350 pound brown bear. A big, pissed off papa grizzly. Do you SERIOUSLY want to be carrying a .22 pistol against that? Also, what do you prefer to be carved into your headstone?

Big game such as bears or elk requires a big gun. You shoot a .22 against something like that, you'd better get an eye shot. Otherwise you're going to bounce your bullet off the skull, give the beastie a headache, and make it really, really interested in stomping whatever just hauled off and whacked it. Hit elsewhere, and that little .22 has a whole lot of muscle and fat to travel through before hitting anything important. Both of those animals are very good at stomping anything they can see or smell.

Do you specifically need a .50? No. But big rounds are good for bigger distance and a bigger wallop when they arrive.

viciokie wrote:Now as for hunting there is no way you need the Barrets .50 to go hunting with it. a black powder is fine and indeed there are some .75 black powders floating around. I personally prefer a recurve bow for hunting. Also a .22 rifle or pistol is just as deadly if not more so because of the bullets tendency to bounce around inside of the body.

You encounter a bear in the woods. Not a cute little 350 pound brown bear. A big, pissed off papa grizzly. Do you SERIOUSLY want to be carrying a .22 pistol against that? Also, what do you prefer to be carved into your headstone?

Big game such as bears or elk requires a big gun. You shoot a .22 against something like that, you'd better get an eye shot. Otherwise you're going to bounce your bullet off the skull, give the beastie a headache, and make it really, really interested in stomping whatever just hauled off and whacked it. Hit elsewhere, and that little .22 has a whole lot of muscle and fat to travel through before hitting anything important. Both of those animals are very good at stomping anything they can see or smell.

Do you specifically need a .50? No. But big rounds are good for bigger distance and a bigger wallop when they arrive.

First off i would not shoot a bear unless i really really had to since i am native american and bears are kinda sacred. I have deer hunted before with a .22 and only needed one bullet. Game wardens dont like it much but what can they do especially if i am using the deer for food? In the extremely rare instance a bear needs to be put down then yes i would use a heavier caliber and i would still only need one shot. I pride myself on my shooting ability and used to "bark" squirrels when i was a kid. As for bears you need to learn how to avoid them and to also carry some pepper spray. It tends to make a bear go elsewhere quick. If you want to learn how to avoid bears take some classes on how to be aware of where and what you are getting into. Grizzly's generally do not live anywhere near me but should i go into their territory i will be sure to learn from natives in that area.

That's a very interesting post to read. And I think he makes a lot of good points. He does however have a rather strong prejudice against non-Republicans. I'm not a Republican but I'm against a vast majority of the proposed gun legislation (and much of the existing legislation) for the simple reason that most of it was written without a real understanding of gun nor a logical look at what they were banning.

He does do an excellent job of refuting many of the arguments being used by the uninformed though. That said, I'm still not sure I'm comfortable with arming teachers under existing CCW laws. I'd be more comfortable with it if they needed to go through more extensive training to give them the knowledge and skills needed to react well in the event of a shooter in a school.

thinkstoomuch wrote:Here is a link to another Baen Author's views on some of this, from the bar for those who don't read it.

Another 10,000 words or so. Not sure I agree with all of it but it makes good reading.

The vast majority of that makes a lot of sense. The only bone I'd have to pick is concerning the NRA, which tends to get a little whackjob at times. Video games are not a causal factor. The Mass Effect video game Facebook page of all places became a target for 40 year old suburban helicopter moms. Mass Effect. Because shooting evil undead space alien cyborgs leads to murder sprees.

If we could have 95% of what he said without the "Libruls gonna take our guns!" hysteria, I'd agree with him. Of course, after four years of good behavior, year 5 seems to be starting off with the crazy-talk, so he may have a point.

Donnachaidh wrote:That's a very interesting post to read. And I think he makes a lot of good points. He does however have a rather strong prejudice against non-Republicans. I'm not a Republican but I'm against a vast majority of the proposed gun legislation (and much of the existing legislation) for the simple reason that most of it was written without a real understanding of gun nor a logical look at what they were banning.

Funny, that's exactly where I'm coming from on this. If only there was some way to tell the gunz-are-scary nuts on one side to read the second amendment, and the religious nuts on the other side to read the first, maybe we could have a little sanity around here.

Who was it who linked to the Penny Arcade strip over in the other thread?

The vast majority of that makes a lot of sense. The only bone I'd have to pick is concerning the NRA, which tends to get a little whackjob at times. Video games are not a causal factor. The Mass Effect video game Facebook page of all places became a target for 40 year old suburban helicopter moms. Mass Effect. Because shooting evil undead space alien cyborgs leads to murder sprees.

If we could have 95% of what he said without the "Libruls gonna take our guns!" hysteria, I'd agree with him. Of course, after four years of good behavior, year 5 seems to be starting off with the crazy-talk, so he may have a point.

Donnachaidh wrote:That's a very interesting post to read. And I think he makes a lot of good points. He does however have a rather strong prejudice against non-Republicans. I'm not a Republican but I'm against a vast majority of the proposed gun legislation (and much of the existing legislation) for the simple reason that most of it was written without a real understanding of gun nor a logical look at what they were banning.

Funny, that's exactly where I'm coming from on this. If only there was some way to tell the gunz-are-scary nuts on one side to read the second amendment, and the religious nuts on the other side to read the first, maybe we could have a little sanity around here.

Who was it who linked to the Penny Arcade strip over in the other thread?

I agree that much of what he says makes sense. But the one area he discusses which i know a lot about (england crime statistics) is a bit where i know he's got his facts wrong, which rather makes me ditrust the rest of his statistics.

-------------------------------Happiness is not having what you wantNor is happiness wanting what you haveHappiness is believing that tomorrow you shall havewhat you want today